Votes of area members of Congress on key issues last...

October 6, 1985|By Congressional Quarterly

WASHINGTON — Votes of area members of Congress on key issues last week.

House

House blocks attempt to set up lower cost loan program for farmers. The House Tuesday narrowly defeated an attempt to establish a loan program that would have allowed the nation's hard-pressed farmers to repay price support loans on crops for less than the original loan. The measure, which also proposed targeting federal assistance to farmers in the worst financial straits, failed 200 to 228.

The 1985 farm bill, to which the amendment was offered, calls for maintaining the present system of ''deficiency'' payments to farmers to make up any shortfall between actual market sale prices and certain ''target'' prices.

House strips referendum plan from farm bill. The House killed a controversial provision in the farm bill Thursday that allowed wheat and feed grain farmers to vote on a new federal plan to give them sharply increased price supports in return for significant cuts in production. The vote of 251 to 174 was an important victory for the Reagan administration in its effort to cut domestic spending.

The provision required the secretary of agriculture to conduct a referendum of wheat and feed grain farmers every two years. Approval from 60 percent of eligible farmers would mean participating farmers would have had to cut back on the number of acres they planted, while the government would raise its price-support levels by as much as a third.

Attempt to kill trade limits on textiles, shoes fails in Senate. Anger over the nation's trade imbalance spilled onto the Senate floor Wednesday when the Senate refused to kill an amendment designed to aid the U.S. textile, apparel and shoe industries by restricting imports. The vote to table the amendment failed 42 to 53.

Debate on the amendment was fueled by President Reagan's refusal to impose import restrictions on shoes, despite a recommendation from the International Trade Commission. Imported shoes now account for over three- quarters of sales in the United States. The amendment proposed limiting imported shoes to a 60 percent share of the U.S. market.